Today I am driving across a rainy country road in southern Ontario, thinking a little of home, and out of the random shuffle of songs on my ipod comes a lovely, haunting, but lovel song by the Pixies that I mist have neve tuned my ears to before… did they sing “Sedona”?
Indeed, after the opening melodic guitar riffs are the cryptic lyrics
Havalina
Walking in the breeze
On the plains of old Sedona
Arizona
Among the trees
Havalina
First off all, are they talking about the collared peccaries (which are not pigs nor hogs) — Pecari tajacu. I know them as javelina though the ‘pedia lets me know that they are also known as “saÃno or báquiro, although these terms are also used to describe other species in the family. The species is also known as the musk hog, Mexican hog. and a javelina. In Trinidad, it is colloquially known as quenk.”
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
Quenk.
That is not such a pretty name for a song title.
“Walking in the breeze
On the plains of old Sedona”
It does sound picturesque, but there are no plains in Sedona, new or old, its nestled in the bottom of a canyon!
cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by btocher
“Among The Trees”
Sedona is not really the place you think of forests, though there are lovely stretch of trees along Oak Creek Canyon, graceful cottonwoods, stately sycamores, in the side canyons juniper, pinyon pine…
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
So this song is full of factual errors- and I love it for that. That is the beauty of music, of art, of what you can conjure up with just words, or just music, or words and music, or an animated GIF… it’s about imagination.
Facts are for textbooks.
Havalina? art.
